Coming home

The emotions I’m feeling as this time comes to a close are all over the place. They’re difficult to hold at the same time. I want to be just as present, just as curious, and just as engaged with these last stops as I was in the beginning. But I’m also feeling the burnout. I’m anxious to get home. I’m anticipating the unknown. I’m excited, nervous, and ready for what comes next, all while knowing that something really significant is coming to an end.

The curiosity is still there, but it has shifted. In the beginning, it was about how we were going to do this amazing year of travel. Now, it’s about how we’re going to integrate back into life. What will we change? What will we hold on to? What will it feel like to return to a nine-to-five schedule and a life that doesn’t involve constantly moving from one place to another? What does life look like for us now?

I’m nervous about that. There are new ways of doing things, new ways of thinking, and new ways of presenting myself that I want to carry home with me. But how easy will it be to hold on to them? How much of what we’ve learned will translate into a life that looks so different from the one we’ve been living?

Travel has also taught us to be adaptable. When you don’t have the things you’re used to, or things don’t go the way you planned, you find a way to make it work. You figure things out, get creative, adjust your expectations, and learn that there is usually another way to do something. Things don’t have to look the way you’re used to for them to work.

I’m also feeling an overwhelming amount of disbelief. Disbelief in the amount of life we’ve just lived in 15 months.

There were so many times I caught myself thinking and saying aloud, I’m living in a movie right now. This is a movie.

The amount of joy, memories, countries, experiences, learning, and growth feels unquantifiable. Indescribable. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully explain what this year has meant to us. It will come out in bits and pieces as I retell stories, share experiences, and talk about little snippets of what made it all so amazing.

It’s not something you can succinctly answer when someone asks, “How was it?” or “What was it like?”

How do you summarize 15 months of living an entirely different life?

Another lesson this year has brought me is just how fleeting life is.

You are in the moment you are in. You may never get that moment back, and even if you do, it won’t be the same. You won’t be experiencing it for the first time. You’ll be a different version of yourself, and the experience will be different, too.

Being an empty nester has played into this lesson as well. Seasons are fleeting. Your kids are infants for such a short season. Other seasons of parenting last longer. Realizing that being the parent of adult children is the longest season you’ll spend with your kids, but even that season doesn’t look the same from year to year.

This season of parenting adult children seems to come in short bursts, with different seasons unfolding for each child. Their lives are changing so much, and they’re all in their own unique stages, that sometimes it feels like we’re living in a sea of seasons.

There’s a kind of peace in recognizing how impermanent everything is. It reminds me that things change. They can change quickly and often, even when we’re in a difficult season. Nothing stays the same forever.

But that realization also terrifies me, because the things that are good and beautiful can change just as quickly. The seasons we want to hold on to the longest are often the ones we wish we could slow down.

One thing I’m nervous about as we return home is losing the perspective I’ve gained this year.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what all of that perspective is. We have some sense of what this year has meant to us, what we’ve learned, and how it has shaped us. But I suspect there are things we won’t fully understand until we reintegrate into life. Maybe some of the biggest lessons haven’t even revealed themselves yet.

I don’t want to lose my curiosity.

I don’t want to lose the desire to learn about life and other people’s lives. I want to remain open to exploring, questioning, and doing things differently. I’m afraid of getting home and slipping back into the mindset of accepting that this is just the way we do things, without questioning why or considering what other possibilities exist.

Travel has given us the opportunity to see people living differently. Not just in the big, obvious ways, but in the small, everyday interactions that make up a life.

The goal isn’t to recreate the life we’ve been living for the past 15 months. I think it’s to bring home the parts of ourselves that have grown during it.

To keep asking questions. To keep noticing. To keep challenging the idea that there’s only one way to live. To keep making room for joy, connection, and experiences that don’t fit neatly into our routines or the social norms and expectations of the culture we are returning to.

I know we won’t be able to hold on to everything. We’ll have responsibilities, schedules, and the everyday rhythms of a life that looks different from this one. We’ll probably fall into old habits sometimes. Maybe we’ll even forget some of the things that feel so clear to us right now.

But I hope we keep returning to them.

I hope we remember that the life we’ve built at home is one way of living, not the only way. That we can make choices about how we spend our time, how we connect with people, what we prioritize, and what we’re willing to question.

This year has also taught us how little we actually need to live happily. We’ve spent 15 months living out of backpacks, moving from place to place, making do with what we have. We’ve learned that happiness doesn’t require as much stuff, space, or comfort as we might have thought. So much of what makes life good has nothing to do with the things we own. It’s the experiences, the connections, the freedom, and the little moments. I want to remember that when we get home and are surrounded by all the things we’ve accumulated and the comforts and conveniences we are used to.

Part of the challenge will be figuring out how to carry what this experience has given us into a life that looks nothing like the one we’ve been living.

Just like when we started this journey, I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know exactly what will change or what will stay the same. I don’t know what we’ll miss, what we’ll struggle with, or what unexpected things will come from this experience months or years from now.

But I do know that I don’t want to return home and simply go back to the way things were.

I want to let this experience keep changing me.

Not by trying to hold on to every moment or recreate the life we had on the road, but allowing the experience to become part of who we are and how we choose to live next.